Professor  Stalker 


The  Luther 
Celebrations  of  1917 


BR  327  .S73  1917 
Stalker,  James,  1848-1927 
The^Luther  celebratioL  of 


The 

LUTHER  CELEBRATIONS 

OF  1917 
By  PKOFESSO!i''sTALKER   M.A.D.D. 


NEW  YORK 

GEORCE     H.     DORAN     COMPANY 

PTTBLTSHERS  IX  AMERICA  FOR  IIODDER  &  STOITGHTON 
MIMXVIl 


L/ 


"BW222Z 


THE  LUTHER 
CELEBRATIONS  OF  1917 

By  Professor  Stalker,  M.A.,  D.D. 

THE  various  Presbyterian  bodies,  at 
their  annual  Synods  or  General  As- 
semblies, in  the  early  part  of  this 
year,  agreed  to  recommend  to  their  minis- 
ters and  Christian  people  the  commemora- 
tion at  the  end  of  October  of  the  great 
events  in  Luther's  life,  and,  as  the  date  is 
now  drawing  near  and  the  situation  is  diffi- 
cult and  delicate,  a  few  words  may  not  be 
out  of  place. 

It  chanced  that  the  present  writer  in  1883 
formed  one  of  a  delegation  from  several  of 
the  Churches  in  Great  Britain  which  went 
to  Wittenberg  to  participate  in  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  Reformer's  birth.  It  proved  to 
be  an  enjoyable  and  memorable  occasion. 
Many  thousands  were  present,  drawn  partly 
from  the  town  and  partly  from  north,  south, 
east  and  west ;  and  the  enthusiasm  was  un- 
bounded, displaying  itself  at  every  oppor- 


4  THE  LUTHERAN   CELEBRATIONS 

tunity  in  the  spontaneous  singing  of  Luth- 
er^s  hymn,  '^A  safe  stronghold  our  God  is 
still/'  The  Imperial  Court  was  represented 
by  the  Crown  Prince  Frederick,  father  of 
the  present  Kaiser — a  man  of  singularly 
noble  presence,  every  inch  a  king — and  he 
conversed  long  and  graciously  in  English 
with  the  representatives  from  the  British 
Isles.  The  greatest  orators  of  the  country 
were  there,  including  such  well-known 
names  as  Kostlin,  Beyschlag  and  Kogel. 
But  the  favourite  was  the  Berlin  garrison- 
preacher  Frommel,  who  experienced  that 
day  a  rare  triumph;  for,  having  to  return 
to  town  in  the  evening,  he  glanced  up  at  the 
steeple,  to  see  the  time,  after  he  had  spoken 
about  an  hour  in  the  open  air ;  but  ten  thou- 
sand voices  instantly  shouted  to  him  from 
every  part  of  the  square,  ''Oh,  do  not  look 
up!''  Perhaps  more  interesting,  however, 
was  the  Court-preacher  Stocker,  then  at  the 
zenith  of  his  fame.  In  appearance  he  bore 
not  a  little  resemblance  to  Luther  himself; 
and,  when  he  said  that  Germany  was  a  steed 
which  few  could  ride,  but  that  Luther  knew 
the  way,  all  felt  that  he  knew  the  way  too ; 
for  his  seat  at  the  moment  seemed  one  of  the 
most  secure,  and  none  then  dreamed  of  his 


THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS  5 

being  hurled  from  it  by  the  caprice  of  an  im- 
perial master,  the  present  Kaiser.  As  1917 
drew  near  it  was  certain  that  there  would  be 
many  competitors  in  this  country  for  the 
honour  and  pleasure  of  renewing  the  hom- 
age rendered  to  Germany's  great  Reformer ; 
and,  till  the  fatal  day  in  August,  1914, 
arrived,  it  would  have  been  denied  by  nearly 
all  lovers  of  Germany  in  this  country  that 
war  between  the  two  countries  could  pos- 
sibly take  place. 

Of  course  there  can  at  present  be  no  send- 
ing of  delegates  from  this  side,  and  these 
would  not  be  welcomed  on  the  other ;  yet  the 
Churches  have  recommended  that  the  cele- 
bration should  not  be  passed  by  in  silence ; 
and,  though  the  commemoration  must  be 
shorn  of  its  glory,  it  may  be  sincere.  Luther 
belongs  to  history,  and  his  contribution  to 
the  progress  of  the  world  is  an  accomplished 
fact,  which  cannot  be  undone.  As  we  should 
consider  it  evidence  of  a  petty  spirit  and 
limited  intelligence  if  any  Germans  were 
induced  by  the  War  to  blaspheme  such  names 
of  ours  as  Shakespeare  or  Lord  Bacon,  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  or  Charles  Darwin,  so  it 
would  be  unworthy  of  us  to  belittle  in  any 


6  THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS 

way  such  names  of  theirs  as  Kant,  Goethe 
and  Beethoven,  that  have  long  ago  secured 
their  niche  in  the  temple  of  fame,  or  to  re- 
fuse to  rejoice  with  those  who  are  remem- 
bering them. 

Luther  was  a  hero,  if  ever  there  was  one. 
The  incident  of  his  life  chosen  for  commem- 
oration by  the  Germans  themselves  in 
1817,  when  the  celebration  made  so  deep  a 
mark  on  the  national  mind  that  it  is  con- 
stantly mentioned  in  books  on  Church  His- 
tory as  among  the  causes  of  the  revival  of 
religion  which  formed  a  feature  of  the  first 
half  of  the  last  century,  was  the  nailing-up 
of  the  Theses  on  Indulgences  on  the  door  of 
the  Castle-church  at  Wittenberg,  and  it  is  to 
the  same  event  that  the  present  commemora- 
tion looks.  It  was  a  great  event,  from  which 
the  Reformation  is  in  Germany  at  least 
usually  dated;  but  there  were  other  inci- 
dents, some  of  which  might  appeal  even 
more  to  the  general  mind,  especially  in  coun- 
tries outside  of  Germany.  The  burning  of 
the  Pope's  bull  outside  the  Elster  Gate  at 
Wittenberg  was  one  of  these,  which  illus- 
trated not  a  few  aspects  of  Luther's  char- 
acter,   and   especially   the   humour   which 


THE   LUTHERAN   CELEBRATIONS  7 

never  deserted  him  even  in  the  most  tragic 
circumstances:  the  Pope  might  burn  him, 
but  he  would  take  the  first  turn  at  burning, 
and  he  hurled  not  only  the  bull  but  the  decre- 
tals— the  very  embodiment  of  papal  tyranny 
— into  the  flames.  But  unquestionably  the 
most  significant  incident  of  all  was  his  ap- 
pearance at  the  Diet  of  Worms,  when,  in  the 
presence  of  the  principalities  and  powers  of 
both  Church  and  State,  he  took  his  stand  on 
conscience  and  the  Word  of  God,  throwing 
off  the  authority  of  popes  and  councils. 
This  has  been  called  by  Carlyle  the  grandest 
scene  of  modern  history,  and  it  exhibited  to 
perfection  both  the  great  qualities  of  the 
man  and  the  greatness  of  the  cause  of  which 
he  was  the  champion.  Everything  of  su- 
preme importance  in  the  centuries  since  was 
implicit  in  that  hour,  and  by  those  to  whom 
October  31,  1917,  may  prove  to  be  an  im- 
practicable date,  April  18,  1921,  the  anni- 
versary of  this  scene,  may  well  be  looked 
forward  to  as  a  substitute. 

Many  love  to  associate  the  hero  especially 
with  the  Castle  of  the  Wartburg,  in  which 
he  was  detained  for  a  year  after  the  Diet  of 
Worms  by  his  own  prince,  Frederick  the 


8  THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS 

Wise,  in  quasi-imprisonment,  but  really 
with  the  intention  of  protecting  him  from 
the  machinations  of  his  enemies  and  restor- 
ing his  mind  to  health  after  the  excessive 
excitement  of  the  preceding  years.  There 
his  leisure  was  occupied  with  the  translation 
of  the  Bible  into  the  language  of  his  native 
land,  and  a  masterpiece  was  produced,  not 
inferior  in  its  influence  on  the  GeiTnan 
language  and  literature  to  that  exercised 
by  King  James'  Version  on  the  English 
tongue.  ^^Luther,''  remarks  the  poet  Heine, 
''created  the  German  language.  This  he  did 
by  his  translation  of  the  Bible.  The  divine 
Author  of  this  Book  Himself  chose  him  to  be 
its  translator  and  gave  him  the  marvellous 
power  to  translate  from  a  dead  language, 
which  was  already  buried,  into  a  living  one, 
which  was  not  yet  born.  How  Luther  came 
to  the  language  into  which  he  translated  the 
Bible  I  cannot  conceive  to  this  day.  This  old 
Book  is  a  perennial  fountain  for  the  renewal 
of  our  native  tongue.^'  The  Wartburg  looks 
out  over  an  incomparable  panorama  of 
mountain  and  pine  in  the  Forest  of  Thurin- 
gia;  and  it  is  a  happy  circumstance  for 
Luther's  fame  that,  when  his  countrymen 
are  on  pilgrimage  to  this  shrine,  they  are  at 


THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS  9 

the  same  time  turning  their  steps  to  one  of 
the  most  lovely  regions  in  the  Fatherland. 

Of  such  felicities  there  are  not  a  few  in 
his  life.  Such  is  his  birth  in  an  inn,  where 
his  parents  were  resting  for  the  night,  re- 
calling that  other  scene  where  the  Mother 
bore  her  Child  in  a  stable  and  laid  it  in  a 
manger.  In  his  boyhood  there  is  the  friend- 
ship of  Ursula  Cotta,  the  motherly  dame  at 
Eisenach,  who  introduced  him  to  a  more 
gentle  existence  than  that  of  a  miner's 
home.  It  was  by  his  singing  that  he  won 
her  attention ;  and  all  his  life  music  was  to 
him  a  consolation  and  a  priceless  gift  of 
God.  "After  working  his  mind  weary," 
says  Heine,  "with  his  dogmatic  distinctions 
during  the  day,  he  took  his  flute  in  the  eve- 
ning, looked  up  to  the  stars,  and  melted  into 
melody  and  devotion.  The  same  man  who 
could  scold  like  a  fishwife  could  be  as  soft  as 
a  tender  virgin.  He  was  at  times  wild  as 
the  storm  which  uproots  the  oak,  and  again 
as  gentle  as  the  zephyr  which  kisses  the 
violets.  He  was  full  of  the  most  awful  fear 
of  God,  full  of  consecration  to  the  Holy 
Spirit ;  and  yet  he  knew  very  well  the  glories 
of  the  earth  and  could  fully  appreciate  them. 


10  THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS 

He  was  a  complete  man — I  might  say,  an 
absolute  man — in  whom  spirit  and  matter 
were  not  separated." 

As  the  years  proceeded  his  troubles  were 
many  and  his  burdens  crushing.  Some  of 
these  came  from  the  perils  to  which  his  life 
and  his  cause  were  exposed  to  his  dying  day. 
From  these  he  never  flinched,  bearing  them 
with  faith  and  prayer.  But  those  by  which 
he  was  most  tormented  were  the  fancies  and 
vagaries  of  adherents  of  his  own  who  did 
not  know  where  to  stop.  When  a  hundred 
things  were  altering,  why  should  not  the 
hundred-and-first  also  be  altered,  to  suit  the 
taste  and  fancy  of  this  scholar  or  that 
prince?  At  one  point  he  himself  was  sup- 
posed by  some  of  his  best  friends  to  be  mak- 
ing the  mistake  of  not  knowing  where  to 
stop.  This  was  when  he  married  Katharine 
von  Bora — an  escaped  nun.  But  it  was  by 
them  that  the  mistake  was  being  made,  be- 
cause this  turned  out  to  be  one  of  the  wisest 
steps  of  his  whole  life. 

His  lucky  star  did  not  desert  him  at  the 
last;  for,  through  a  freak  of  chance,  he  died 
in  the  same  village  in  which  he  had  been 


THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS  11 

born,  after  intervening  with  success  in  a 
dispute  among  the  Counts  of  Mansfeld, 
whose  castle  crowned  the  hill  at  the  bottom 
of  which  his  father  dwelt.  When  asked  on 
his  deathbed  if  he  adhered  to  the  doctrine 
which  he  had  taught  to  the  world,  he  an- 
swered with  an  unhesitating  affirmative; 
and  he  died,  like  his  Saviour,  in  the  act  of 
commending  his  spirit  to  his  Maker. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Reformation  has  been 
summed  up  by  historians  in  two  principles 
— one  formal  and  one  material.  These  are 
terms  of  the  schools ;  but  the  meaning  of  the 
one  is  that,  when  the  authority  is  sought  on 
which  a  human  being  can  rely  when  exer- 
cised about  the  question  of  questions,  ^^What 
must  I  do  to  be  saved?"  he  will  find  it  in  the 
Word  of  God;  and  the  other  means  that, 
when  the  message  is  sought  which  the  Bible 
supplies  for  such  an  inquiring  spirit,  it  is 
briefly  comprehended  in  Justification  by 
Faith  alone.  Those  in  search  of  an  ampler 
exposition  of  these  principles  may  seek  it 
with  advantage  in  his  three  chief  works, 
none  of  them  long,  written  at  the  height  of 
his  conflict  with  the  powers  of  evil — the 
Address  to  the  Christian  Nobility  of  the 


12  THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS 

German  NatioUy  in  which  he  attacks  mer- 
cilessly the  evils  of  the  time,  and  especially 
the  papacy ;  The  Babylonian  Captivity  of  the 
Churchy  in  which  the  sacramental  theory  is 
similarly  dealt  with,  and  The  Liberty  of  a 
Christian  Man,  in  which,  soaring  far  above 
the  region  of  controversy,  he  demonstrates 
the  two  propositions — that  a  Christian  man 
is  the  most  free  lord  of  all  and  subject  to 
none,  and  that  a  Christian  man  is  the  most 
dutiful  servant  of  all  and  subject  to  every 
one.  To  the  ordinary  mind,  however,  Luth- 
er has  a  sufficient  title  to  honour  in  the  gift 
to  the  world  of  three  blessings — an  open 
Bible,  the  worship  of  God  in  the  language  of 
the  people,  and  the  Protestant  manse  with 
wife  and  children. 

Such  are  the  topics  with  which  our  pulpits 
would  have  resounded  if  the  Luther  Cele- 
bration had  fallen  before  the  commencement 
of  the  War;  and,  as  has  been  stated  above, 
the  Courts  of  the  Church  have  judged  that, 
in  spite  of  the  War,  the  pulpit  should  not  be 
silent.  The  time,  however,  is  one  of  im- 
mense strain  and  irritation;  and  it  would 
be  easy  to  sound  the  praises  of  Luther  and 
the  Reformation  in  such  a  way  as  to  do  more 


THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS  13 

harm  than  good.  Since  the  day  of  the  in- 
vasion of  Belgium  the  conscience  of  Britain 
has  been  in  absolute  clearness  and  unanim- 
ity about  the  righteousness  of  our  cause; 
diplomatic  and  other  revelations  have  been 
convincing  the  country  more  and  more  of 
the  vainglorious  and  sinister  designs  of 
Germany,  and  far  worse  have  been  the 
means  by  which  she  has  been  carrying  these 
out;  those  who  have  lost  their  nearest  and 
dearest  feel  that  their  sacrifices  would  be 
turned  into  ridicule  unless  security  were 
found  that  Europe  could  not  be  brought 
again  into  such  a  situation.  In  short,  no 
preacher  can  decline  the  responsibility  of 
connecting  what  he  has  to  say  of  Luther  and 
the  Reformation  with  the  present  War. 


I. 

We  claim  to  be  better  disciples  of  Luther 
than  the  Germans  are  themselves. 

The  political  opinions  of  Luther  it  would 
not  be  easy  in  a  short  space  to  define.  In 
this  region  he  was  not  a  systematic  but  a 
temperamental  thinker.  He  always  ex- 
pressed with  force  the  opinion  in  his  mind 
at  the  time;  but  his  opinions  were  not  al- 
ways the  same,  and  it  would  not  be  difficult 
to  extract  from  his  writings  sentences  sup- 
porting almost  any  political  view.  In  his 
earliest  and  best  time  he  was  the  champion 
of  freedom  and  conscience,  denouncing  the 
tyranny  of  Rome,  which  wanted  to  enslave 
the  whole  world,  and  claiming  for  the  Em- 
pire and  for  every  German  state  the  right 
to  have  a  mind  and  a  will  of  its  own.  At  the 
outbreak  of  the  Peasants'  War  he  expressed 
deep  sympathy  with  the  wrongs  of  the  vic- 
tims of  serfdom  and  charged  the  nobles  to 
their  faces  with  the  inhumanity  with  which 
they  had  long  been  treating  their  humble 
fellow-Christians.  But,  when  the  insur- 
gents refused  to  follow  his  advice,  he  was 
betrayed  into  language  which  was  felt  by 


THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS  15 

many  at  the  time,  as  it  has  been  by  many 
since,  to  be  unworthy  of  him,  and  which 
might  perhaps  be  quoted  in  justification  of 
the  ^^frightfulness''  practised  at  present  by 
those  in  authority.  It  was  the  opinion  of 
Principal  Lindsay,  whose  numerous  writ- 
ings on  Luther  give  unusual  attention  to  the 
political  side  of  his  career,  that  at  this  point 
Luther  experienced  a  mental  shock  from 
which  he  never  afterwards  entirely  recov- 
ered. He  lost  faith  in  the  common  man,  and 
was  too  disposed  to  put  his  trust  in  princes. 
As  the  movement  the  success  of  which  meant 
life  or  death  to  him  made  headway  almost 
exclusively  in  the  regions  of  the  country 
where  the  princes  were  favourable,  he  was 
induced  to  concede  to  these  an  amount  of 
power  inside  the  Church  which  has  ever 
since  been  a  weight  and  a  hindrance.  This 
timidity  has  clung  to  German  churchmen 
ever  since ;  and  one  of  themselves,  a  scholar 
of  great  eminence,  whose  specialty  is  the 
comprehensive  survey  of  history,  has 
acknowledged  that  Lutheranism  naturally 
allies  itself  too  easily  with  the  monarchical 
and  the  aristocratic,  being  afraid  of  the 
freer  and  more  progressive  forces  in  so- 
ciety; since  the  French  Revolution  it  has 


16  THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS 

identified  itself  with  reaction  in  Church  and 
State ;  and  it  has  had  not  a  little  to  do  with 
the  growth  of  the  military  and  power-loving 
spirit  in  the  Germany  which  has  Prussia  for 
its  head  (Troeltsch,  Die  Soziallehren  der 
christlicheii  Kitchen,  pp.  602-5). 

It  is  not,  however,  to  profound  political 
theories  in  Luther's  writings  that  we  need 
to  appeal,  but  to  his  plain  teaching  on  the 
simplest  elements  in  the  Moral  Law — not  to 
violate  one's  spoken  or  written  word,  not  to 
covet  the  possessions  of  one's  neighbours, 
not  to  steal,  not  to  kill.  There  never  was  a 
prophet  of  righteousness  who  uttered  his 
mind  on  such  topics  more  forcibly ;  and  one 
could  wish  back  in  the  world  again,  for  the 
purpose  of  denouncing  in  the  terms  they 
deserve  such  deeds  as  the  horrors  unveiled 
in  the  Report  of  Lord  Bryce's  Comiaission, 
the  mistreatment  of  prisoners  in  certain 
camps,  and  the  sinking  of  the  '^Lusitania," 
the  voice  that  exposed  the  abuses  of  papal 
misrule  in  the  Address  to  the  Christian  No- 
bility of  the  German  Nation,  At  all  events. 
Great  Britain  does  not  require  to  be  afraid 
of  holding  her  corner  of  the  book  of  Luther's 
teaching,  if  Germany  will  hold  the  other,  so 


THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS  17 

that  the  turning  of  the  leaves  may  make  the 
evildoer  tremble  and  the  sophist  blush  who 
attempts  to  be  the  defender  of  outrages  per- 
petrated against  the  laws  of  God  and  of 
humanity. 


11. 

We  appeal  from  the  new  Pimssianised 
Empire  to  the  old  Land  of  Luther, 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  War  a  friend  of 
the  present  writer,  who  had  been  educated 
at  Leipzig,  exclaimed,  ''Oh,  what  a  change 
from  the  simple,  friendly,  pious  Germany  of 
my  youth  to  the  boasting,  overbearing, 
Prussianised  Germany  of  to-day!''  And  to 
many -of  us,  familiar  with  Germany,  it  has 
been  one  of  the  bitterest  experiences  of  life 
to  see  the  difference  in  teachers  and  friends 
whom  we  have  known  and  loved.  In  no  de- 
partment of  Christian  thought  has  German 
scholarship  a  prouder  record  than  in  Chris- 
tan  Ethics — witness  the  works  of  Schleier- 
macher,  Rothe,  Dorner,  Luthardt — yet, 
when  a  practical  ethical  question  of  im- 
measurable importance  has  arisen,  the  men 
of  character  and  learning  appear  to  have 
utterly  failed,  and  we  have  listened  in  vain 
for  any  condemnation  from  their  mouths  of 
the  most  flagrant  cruelties  and  injustices. 
It  may,  indeed,  be  replied  that  it  is  we  who 
have  failed  and  changed.  But,  if  this  be 
said,  then  the  neutrals  must  decide  between 
us;  and  it  is  here  that  the  coming  of  the 


THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS  19 

United  States  into  the  struggle  is  for  us  so 
valuable.  Much  as  their  immeasurable  re- 
sources may  help  us,  we  estimate  still  more 
highly  their  approval  of  the  course  we  have 
pursued  and  disapproval  of  the  conduct  of 
the  enemy;  for  to  us  America  is  a  second 
conscience,  whose  judgments  weigh  with  us 
more  than  those  of  any  other  people  on 
earth. 

In  another  neutral  country,  Denmark,  a 
Christian  scholar  has  taken  the  trouble  to 
put  together  a  book  which  has  been  trans- 
lated into  English  and  published  under  the 
title  of  Hurrah  and  Hallelujah,  It  is  a  col- 
lection of  utterances  about  the  War,  com- 
piled from  German  preachers  and  profes- 
sors ;  and  it  has  been  published  for  the  very 
purpose  of  exposing  the  depths  of  futility 
and  fatuity  to  which  these  have  descended, 
not  a  few  of  the  extracts  bordering  on  in- 
sanity or  blasphemy.  What,  however,  can 
be  expected  from  common  men  when  a 
scholar  like  Professor  Herrmann,  of  Mar- 
burg, himself  a  distinguished  writer  on 
Christian  Ethics,  has  published  a  book, 
under  the  title  of  The  English^  the  Turks 
and  Ourselves,  of  which  the  thesis  is  that  it 


20  THE   LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS 

is  no  disgrace  to  be  allied  with  Turks, 
though  it  would  be  disgraceful  to  be  allied 
with  Englishmen,  in  whom  is  to  be  found 
nothing  but  falsehood  and  hypocrisy? 
There  is  no  living  teacher  in  Germany  who 
has  been  more  honoured  in  this  country  than 
Dr.  Herrmann;  and  such  a  performance 
does  not  excite  our  indignation  so  much  as 
shame  and  pity  that  one  who  had  stood  so 
high  should  stoop  so  low.  How  extem- 
porised and  artificial,  however,  is  the  sen- 
timent of  his  pamphlet  may  be  inferred 
from  the  w^ords  of  another  great  writer  on 
Christian  Ethics  in  a  work  published  in 
1905:  discussing  the  possibility  of  com- 
pletely stopping  war,  Professor  Lemme,  of 
Heidelberg,  says :  ''Christian  sentiment 
cannot  recommend  the  total  ending  of  war 
as  long  as  there  exists  such  a  miserable 
image  of  a  state  as  Turkey:  the  never-ceas- 
ing massacres  of  Christians  and  the  enmity 
to  all  culture  of  the  Turkish  race  compel  the 
judgment  that  the  continued  existence  of 
this  government  is  ten  times  worse  than  the 
wars  which  would  be  needed  for  its  re- 
moval'^  {Christliche  Ethik,  p.  1020).  Can 
it  be  doubted  which  of  these  two  is  the  true 
voice  of  Germany? 


THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS  21 

In  a  small  work,  entitled  German  Phil- 
osophy in  Relation  to  the  War,  Professor 
Muirhead,  of  Birmingham  University,  has 
proved  that  the  War  is  not  traceable  to  the 
great  figures  of  the  German  philosophical 
dynasty  from  Kant  to  Fichte,  but  to  later 
and  inferior  practitioners,  and  it  would  not 
be  difficult  to  date  the  commencement  of  the 
deterioration,  as  far  as  religion  and  the- 
ology are  concerned.  It  was  out  of  the 
victories  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War  that 
the  inordinate  ambitions  of  Germany  were 
born.  Soon  after  that  the  present  writer 
happened  to  hear  in  the  Cathedral  of  Berlin 
a  sermon  from  a  Court-preacher,  delivered 
on  the  anniversary  of  one  of  the  great  bat- 
tles of  that  war.  The  Emperor  was  present, 
and  so  were  numerous  officials  of  the  Court 
and  officers  of  the  army.  The  preacher 
described  the  late  war — its  hopes  and  fears, 
its  losses  and  victories.  But  he  proceeded  to 
expatiate  on  the  consequences  which  had 
ensued — the  payment  of  the  French  mil- 
liards, the  outbreak  of  luxury  and  extrav- 
agance, the  haste  to  be  rich  and  the  mad 
rush  of  speculation.  And  he  finished  with 
the  sentence,  ''We  expected  roses  to  grow 


22  THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS 

on  the  graves  of  our  heroes — but,  lo,  net- 
tles !"  These  words  went  through  the  build- 
ing like  the  flash  of  a  flaming  sword,  and 
you  could  feel  the  start  of  the  whole  con- 
gregation. 

Since  then  the  sowing  of  nettles  has  gone 
on  apace.  One  of  the  sowers  has  been 
Treitschke.  In  this  man's  teaching  there 
are  not  wanting  elements  of  nobleness  and 
truth,  for  a  people  cannot  but  aspire  after 
political  liberty,  and  cannot  but  cleave  to  the 
State  or  the  dynasty  which  has  given  them 
the  chance.  But  the  light  that  leads  astray 
may  be  light  from  heaven,  and  unregulated 
love  of  country  may  prove  as  dangerous  as 
excessive  love  of  home,  which  Jesus  Himself 
condemned  in  such  severe  terms  when  it  led 
away  from  Himself.  The  pagan  worship  of 
the  Roman  Emperors  is  revived  in  the  Prus- 
sian deification  of  the  State ;  and  Christian 
Ethics  must  face  the  question  whether  there 
is  a  Christian  law  only  for  the  individual 
but  not  for  the  community,  and  whether  the 
rules  and  decencies  observed  in  times  of 
peace  may  be  exchanged  in  time  of  war  for 
the  scheming  and  violence  of  savages. 


THE  LUTHERAN   CELEBRATIONS  23 

The  real  poisoner,  however,  of  the  mind 
of  Germany  has  been  Friedrich  Nietzsche. 
It  is  true  he  scoffed  and  sneered  at  Prussia, 
but  this  was  only  the  trick  of  the  literary 
artist,  who  knew  the  piquancy  of  contradic- 
tion ;  for  his  teaching  is  the  very  essence  of 
Prussianism.  It  is  true  that  many  Chris- 
tian teachers  have  written  against  him ;  but 
they  have  done  so  with  marked  restraint,  as 
if  conscious  that  he  had  behind  him  a 
numerous  and  powerful  following,  which  it 
would  not  do  to  offend.  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  his  disdain  for  Christian  morality  and 
his  blasphemy  of  the  Name  that  is  above 
every  name  have  sunk  deeply  into  the  gen- 
eral mind  in  Germany  and  will  not  be  easily 
extirpated. 

Lovers  of  Germany  in  this  country  have 
been  watching  eagerly  for  signs  of  a  better 
mind;  and  though  these  have  been  few  and 
far  between  they  have  not  been  altogether 
wanting.  One  aged  scholar,  a  year  or  more 
before  the  War,  published  a  volume  of  ex- 
tracts from  books,  leading  articles  and 
speeches,  to  show  how  the  mind  of  the  coun- 
try was  being  abused  by  the  military  spirit, 
and  how  imminent  was  the  peril  of  a  univer- 


24  THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS 

sal  war.  At  least  one  well-known  Christian 
writer  protested  against  the  invasion  of  Bel- 
gium, and  another,  of  still  greater  eminence, 
condemned  the  Hymn  of  Hate,  censuring  its 
puerility  and  warning  the  country  how  vain 
was  the  attempt  to  make  hatred  the  foun- 
dation of  prosperity  instead  of  love.  The 
names  of  such  men  it  would  not  perhaps  be 
safe  now  to  repeat ;  but  these  acts  of  wisdom 
will  not  be  forgotten  in  happier  days,  and 
perhaps  they  are  the  harbingers  of  the  re- 
turn of  public  opinion  in  Germany  to  right- 
eousness and  humanity. 


III. 

Wcy  who  stand  in  need  of  repentance  our- 
selves,  hope  yet  to  collaborate  with  a 
penitent  Germany  in  bringing  in  the 
Kingdom  of  God, 

When  Luther  and  the  Reformation  are 
considered  in  the  light  of  the  War,  the  sad 
reflection  forces  itself  on  the  mind,  how  lit- 
tle Protestantism  at  the  critical  moment 
affected  the  decision !  It  did  not  delay  the 
outbreak  of  war  even  for  a  day;  and  this 
could  not  be  without  great  guilt  on  both 
sides.  Germany,  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States,  the  three  great  Protestant 
Powers,  could  have  not  only  kept  peace 
among  themselves,  but  imposed  peace  on 
the  world.  In  such  a  combination  the  lead 
could  probably  only  have  been  taken  by  the 
German  Emperor.  He  had  often  claimed  to 
be  an  apostle  of  peace,  and  it  is  possible  that 
this  claim  was  sincere ;  for,  although  at  the 
present  time  he  is  the  Aunt  Sally  which  the 
populace  always  in  such  a  case  requires 
against  which  to  discharge  the  missiles  of 
blame  and  scorn,  he  may  be  the  victim  of 
the  war-machine,  which  has  passed  beyond 


26  THE   LUTHERAN   CELEBRATIONS 

his  control.  But  he  missed  his  opportunity, 
and  no  man  ever  threw  a  larger  heritage 
away.  Had  he  made  himself  the  leader  of  a 
league  of  peace  he  would  have  died  the 
greatest  monarch  on  earth,  and  been  re- 
membered as  one  of  the  greatest  benefactors 
of  the  race.  His  country,  too,  would  have 
had  the  place  in  the  sun  of  which  he  has 
spoken — the  sunshine  of  the  respect  and 
honour  of  mankind.  But  this  golden  har- 
vest cannot  now  be  reached;  and,  the  more 
genuine  the  Kaiser's  religious  professions 
may  be,  the  more  haunting  must  be  the  re- 
flections in  his  secret  mind  on  the  misery  he 
has  brought  on  mankind  and  the  millions 
whom  his  policy  has  sent  before  their  time 
to  their  account. 

But  the  three  great  Protestant  nations 
were,  besides,  the  three  great  missionary 
nations;  and  those  whose  vocation  it 
was  to  teach  the  rest  of  mankind  to 
love  one  another  are  at  one  another's 
throats  in  the  sight  of  the  heathen. 
At  the  Edinburgh  Conference  in  1910  all 
the  Protestant  Churches  and  Missionary 
Societies  were  seen  in  such  union  and  co- 
operation that  the  young  and  sanguine  be- 


THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS  27 

gan  to  talk  about  the  christianisation  of  the 
world  in  a  single  generation.  The  growth 
of  income  was  a  common  theme  of  congratu- 
lation. Yet  the  income  of  all  the  missionary 
bodies  for  a  year  is  surpassed  by  the  expen- 
diture on  the  War  for  a  day,  and  the  total 
expenditure  on  this  single  war  will  infinitely 
exceed  the  expenditure  on  Foreign  Missions 
since  the  world  began.  The  more  conscious 
any  side  is  of  its  own  share  in  such  colossal 
folly,  the  less  will  it  be  inclined  to  exagger- 
ate the  guilt  of  another ;  and,  the  deeper  the 
sense  of  guilt,  the  less  distant  will  be  the 
day  of  reconciliation. 

In  an  article  in  the  September  number  of 
The  Nineteenth  Century  and  After  a  mili- 
tary contributor  advocates  the  suspension 
of  all  intercourse  with  Germans  for  a  gen- 
eration; and  doubtless  in  the  Teutonic 
nations  there  could  be  found  plenty  ready 
to  return  the  compliment.  But  the  humaner 
policy  of  President  Wilson,  to  wage  the  War 
not  against  the  German  people,  but  the 
Prussian  autocracy,  will  hold  the  field. 
From  the  first  the  President  has  endeav- 
oured to  keep  his  people  to  the  wise  maxim 
that  the  end  of  war  is  peace,  and  if  there  be 


28  THE  LUTHERAN  CELEBRATIONS 

established  among  the  civilised  nations  a 
league  for  compulsory  peace,  and,  if,  at  the 
same  time,  among  the  Christian  peoples 
there  arise  a  voluntary  league  for  the 
evangelisation  of  the  world,  on  a  scale  of 
expenditure  imitated  from  the  sacrifices 
and  services  of  the  present  struggle,  then 
may  the  calamities  of  this  generation  prove 
to  be  the  gateway  to  a  new  era  of  human 
happiness  and  progress,  although  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that,  when  Christian  men 
or  nations  have  allowed  themselves  to  drift 
so  far  asunder,  they  can  only  hope  to  return 
effectively  to  one  another  through  first  re- 
turning to  Him  who  is  the  fountain  of 
wisdom,  love  and  concord. 


THE  END 


Date  Due 

i^l'C  .:s 

*BCTTT*^ 

r 

- 

^ 

PHOTOMOUNT 

PAMPHLET  BINDER 

/^/ 

V.ani  factored  by 

GAYLr  RD  BROS.  Inc. 

Syracuse,  N.Y. 

St.  ckton,  Co  I  if. 


r^ 


BW2222.S78 

The  Luther  celebrations  of  1917, 
Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer 


■'^k^. 


IF- 


Pjr-^ 


